Bill the Date on that report 3/24
another report just come out
Commerce Department Likely to Let VeriSign Keep Dot-Com Turf
Dow Jones Online News, Tuesday, May 15, 2001 at 00:17
(Published on Monday, May 14, 2001 at 21:18)
WASHINGTON -- The Commerce Department said it was close to a deal with VeriSign Inc.
to extend the firm's dominance of registrations for the ".com" Internet domain name,
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported.
In a meeting late Mondday, the department asked VeriSign to address Justice Department
antitrust concerns before it approved an agreement extending the Mountain View, Calif.,
firm's control of the address suffix. The talks centered on issues such as the duration of the
deal, people familiar with the matter said.
"We are pleased with the progress and are confident an agreement can be reached in the
near term," Commerce Department General Counsel Ted Kassinger said in a statement.
In a recent letter to Commerce Department officials, Justice Department lawyer M.J.
Moltenbrey said a deal struck last month between VeriSign and the Internet's governing
body -- the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann -- raised some risks of
anticompetitive conduct. In response, the Commerce Department yesterday told VeriSign
more protections are needed in the contract.
"We're confident we're going to get a deal in short order," said Brian O'Shaughnessy, a
spokesman for VeriSign.
Icann, in Marina del Rey, Calif., is under fire from many quarters for renewing VeriSign's
monopoly on the .com suffix. To inject competition into the domain-name system, Icann
has signed a pact with Sterling, Va., start-up Neulevel Inc., to offer Internet addresses
ending with .biz. The deal is expected to be announced shortly.
The arrangement with VeriSign lets the company receive $6 in wholesale fees for every
address registered by itself or other retailers and $6 for annual renewals. VeriSign,
however, will surrender control of the .org and .net suffixes. The deal has been
controversial within Icann and among Internet firms, where there is resentment of VeriSign
for its long monopoly of .com.
Copyright (c) 2001 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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